


When we meet again

by Zi_ra



Category: The Song of Achilles
Genre: Achilles - Freeform, Angst, Cannon compliant, Comfort, Cute, Death, Hurt, M/M, Madeline Miller - Freeform, Memories, Patroclus - Freeform, Patroclus' POV, Sad, The Song of Achilles - Freeform, mlm, post end of the book, tsoa - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24978133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zi_ra/pseuds/Zi_ra
Summary: Patrolcus is dead. Achilles grieves. Patroclus watches.Patroclus reflects on the time after his death and before he made it to the underworld; will he find Achilles? Will they be together again?
Relationships: Achilles & Patroclus (Song of Achilles), Achilles/Patroclus, Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 61





	When we meet again

From early childhood, we are taught stories and legends and beliefs about what the underworld is like; though that’s all they are, just stories. They aren’t cold hard facts because truthfully nobody really knows the cold hard facts. I spent days in the world between, the space joining life to death where you are held in limbo until the living burn your body and lay the ashes to rest, floating like a stagnant gust of wind in a nowhere space. I was able to witness the events of the mortal world, the one I’d left behind, but I couldn’t communicate with anyone and I could hear the rambling of the Gods yet could not understand or participate in it. I had to watch, helpless, whilst Achilles, my Achilles, screamed over my lifeless corpse. I had to watch as he gently lifted me into our bed and lay there, alongside my dead body, sobbing and clutching at my hands as if that would magically spark new life into my dead bones. I had to watch as Briseis was shot down by Pyrrhus whilst she tried to swim away. And I had to watch as Achilles was shot down by Paris’ arrow - I had never felt such a flurry of emotions as I did when I saw the golden god’s smug expression as my Achilles hit the ground. Relief. Grief. Happiness and a rage such as I had never felt before, a rage that could have matched Achilles’ own. I watched. I cried. I screamed out, hoping someone, anyone, could hear me; they couldn’t. Before his death Achilles had placed my body upon a pyre and set my flesh aflame, as the fire danced about my earthly body heat licked at my soul - I could feel it, it didn’t hurt but I had not expected to be able to feel the fire. I had not expected to feel again. Yet he had not laid my ashes to rest, so I could not rest - he wanted our ashes mixed together so that we might meet again in the underworld, if so I would wait eternity for him to die to see him, touch him, hold him again. 

Achilles was dead and yet I could not find him. He’d been buried, laid to rest, given a place in history for eternity. Yet they broke his dying wish, they refused to bury me with him. Understandably for I was nobody and he was Achilles, Aristos Achaion. Some part of me could feel him, frantic in the afterlife desperate to know why I hadn’t arrived - he didn’t know. It broke me. Maybe he thought I’d hidden, ran away trying to avoid him. Such was far from the truth. 

I often sat by his grave, stroking the stone in a ridiculous hope that he could feel my touch and would understand that I would be with him as soon as I could; I did not know how long that would be. Thetis visited often, asking me to recount memories of Achilles. I hated her. I did, but some part of me felt for her - she had lost her son after all. So I told her. I painted a picture of him - I had never been much of an artist, I had never been much of anything really, but with a muse such as Achilles creating a masterpiece was easy, I brought colour back to memories that had become palid with the decay of time. The beach; Pelion; his 16th birthday; when he called me his husband; the time he saved me from a water snake. One memory held in my mind, a conversation on a summer day in the mountains. 

“Name one hero who was happy”   
“I can’t”   
“I know. They never let you be famous and happy. I’m going to be the first...swear it”  
“Why me”   
“Because you’re the reason. Swear it”   
“I swear it”

I’d keep that one to myself, it was us in our prime before the damage of war had infected us. However much Thetis knew about Achilles and me, she needn’t know that. I wanted to keep some parts of him to myself, however selfish that may seem. So much had others taken from me, what I could keep I would hold onto with everything I was and everything I am. One day she returned and the air felt different, my existence was more peaceful - a long walk from happy - but peaceful at least. The space around Achilles’ grave seemed to glow, a subtle gold fitting for a beauty such as he had. The birds were silent, the wind stilled, the leaves on the trees rested from their perpetual swing - only the waves continued, a gentle ripple which lapped against the beach splashing a salty scent through the air. Thetis approached, her stature differed from the times I had seen her before. She had lost her arrogant air and her posture seemed humbled, even sad. She greeted me and touched Achilles’ grave to greet him also.   
“I have done it,” she says. I look at the grave.

A C H I L L E S 

I was confused as to what she meant and I was inclined to ask but then my gaze shifted and I saw, carved alongside his name was mine: 

P A T R O C L U S 

I was free. Finally. I could rest. I could see him again. She smiled and I smiled back - there was kindness in her smile, something I had never seen before.

“Thank you” I whispered as the mortal world faded from my view. 

As I said, no one really knows what the underworld is really like; it’s all speculation. What I hadn’t expected was to feel entirely human and alive again when I woke up. I woke up on the floor with a cold, hard stone floor beneath my back. My lungs ached and I realised that I felt the need to breathe, I did so and as I did my body woke up, my flesh pinkened and my muscles regained their strength. I felt normal. You don’t quite realise what being alive feels like until you are stripped of it and left as a nothing entity for days, weeks? My grasp of the concept of time had slackened… I assumed I wouldn’t need it anymore though. 

Achilles 

I could feel him here. Something within me, a longing that stretched across my chest, I knew he was close. I stood up and brushed the sooty debris off my crumpled tunic and walked towards a vast obsidian staircase. I held onto the railing, feeling a bit off-balance after not using my legs for so long, and ascended. 

Achilles

I was closer now, I knew it. The staircase was long and though I knew I was close a sense of despair washed over me and I felt lost. I began to think I would never reach the top and even if I did he wouldn’t be there. Or even worse, he would be but he would look at me with disdain and disgust and I would never feel his love again - never get to express everything that I had left unsaid during our 18 years together - too short, we should’ve had more. 

“Patroclus” 

I flinched, I thought I had heard my name but I had heard the stories from Peleus before so I ignored it, not willing to be tricked. 

Pa-tro-clus

It was him, nobody ever, apart from him, pronounced my name correctly and with such ease and tenderness. I sped up and launched into a run - I ran faster than I had ever in my life, even faster than I had on the battlefield that day.

Pa-tro-clus 

Then I saw him. His golden locks cascading elegantly across his shoulders, his forest eyes shining with the glow of youth that they had when I originally fell in love with him. I tried to shout his name, get his attention, but I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think. He was here, my Achilles and we could be together forever just like we planned when we were young. 

Suddenly he turned, having heard my sobs from where I stood, motionless, on the stairs. 

“Patroclus” He sighed

I smiled a wet, tearful, smile.

“-Chillies” 

He ran to meet me, gathering my weak form in his arms and sinking us to a sitting position on the steps. I buried my head in his chest and wrapped my arms across the expanse of his back. I had found him. 

“I found you” He sobbed. I looked up to meet his eyes 

“You know how to make me follow you everywhere” I echoed words he once spoke to me, back in Pelion. 

He smiled.

“I am never letting you go again” 

And he didn’t. Achilles was always one to keep his promises, that’s one of the things I loved about him - one of many. Every qualm and tension and fight that was between us was left forgotten on the mortal plane; here we could just be Achilles and Patroclus. Exactly how it should be. 

Some time had passed. I had taken to not counting time specifically anymore, it didn’t matter because we had eternity. Days, weeks, months, years - none of it mattered anymore. But regardless, some measure of time had passed and Achilles and I were laying in our bed, legs intertwined, noses touching when he whispered to me. An echo of our past. 

“Name one hero who is happy” I noted the change of word but I didn’t mention it, playing along instead.  
I pretended to ponder it for a while until I was awarded a smack on the arm and a laugh from Achilles.  
“I can’t” I echoed back   
“I know, but I can”   
“Who?” I asked in return  
“Me”   
“How are you happy”   
“You. You are the reason. You have always been the reason. You swore it”  
“That I did and I would swear it over and over again if it meant we could be together for eternity”   
He pressed his lips to mine   
“You made me a hero Patroclus.” I love you hung silently from his words, dripping like ambrosia.  
I smiled “and you made me brave”


End file.
